The Senate sent officers to review and spectate the political debate which took place in Elpida the 23rd of December 2405S. After a thorough review of the events we have concluded that the following electoral and political laws should be published and followed on penalty of the removal of citizenship (as well as ooc punishments). These have been published under the Debate Act of 2405S and the Electoral Act of 2405S respectively. The Debate Act of 2405S Bribery The Bribery section forbids all forms of political and governmental bribery. Bribery covers all forms of paying somebody, so it includes paying people in money, property, food, valuables, services, animals, power, titles, etc. You are not permitted to pay the members of your group. You are not permitted to attempt to/actually do/suggest that you will pay people to vote for you. You are not permitted to use your own personal money in governmental spending, especially not to promote your campaign. You are not permitted to bribe other governmental officials to step down, step up, etc. A governmental official is not permitted to accept a bribe which leads to another person gaining money/power/influence/etc. You are not permitted to attempt to bribe officers, guards, authoritarian peoples, etc. Disruption At a political/governmental debate, you are not permitted to cause major or minor disruption. This includes shouting, rioting, violence, not letting people speak, etc. You are not permitted to repeatedly speak over other people in order to stop them from speaking or answering questions when it is their turn to speak. You are not permitted to cause any kind of deliberate or planned violence in the court. You are not permitted to threaten or suggest any kind of violence in court. You are not permitted to shout (or constant caps lock / spam) in the courtroom. You are not permitted to repeat the same line over and over again (don’t spam) You are not permitted to stop the designated Senate officer (member of staff assigned to leading the debate) of the debate from speaking or doing their job. You are not allowed to take the podium when it isn’t your turn/without permission from the designated Senate officer (member of staff assigned to leading the debate). You are not permitted blades / weaponry of any kind at debates or governmental meetings You cannot organise people to deliberately berate one specific person in order to demean or humiliate them. You must remain civil at all times, especially to the designated Senate officer (member of staff assigned to leading the debate). You are not allowed to plan to plant people in the audience to ask convenient questions. The Electoral Act of 2405S Electing To be able to be elected, a player must not have ever broken an electoral, political, or governmental law. To be able to be elected, a player must have a citizenship to Elpida. You must follow the political system the Senate has provided (Executive Magistrate, Prefect, and Trade Minister). You can only run for one office at a time (using multiple accounts for political purposes will result in a ban). In your electoral campaign you cannot use your personal money in order to gain attention or support. Your electoral campaign cannot involve violence against a group of people based on religion, politics, gender, race, etc. Only in a time of war/attack of Elpida can you discuss such matters, and even then it must be on the basis of defense. Senate The Senate sends many dozens of spies, agents, and officers to constantly investigate politicians, parties, the government, debates, etc. (Only staff can be the senate). You must cooperate with the Senate. You cannot plan to, suggest, or actually partake in a rebellion against the senate. This means you cannot create private government/military. (Not only is this a roleplay rule, this is an ooc rule. As the senate are staff, it stops corruption, helps manage the island, keep the political system working, etc. Therefore attempting this results in an ooc punishment as well as rp punishment). You must read, and accept the Senate’s weekly statement on the government if you are part of the government. You must take action on the commands of the senate. If you have information or evidence of anyone breaking these laws you must send that to a senate officer to inform the senate immediately (this means a member of staff) otherwise you are complicit in the crime. You must respect all members of the Senate, as even the officers represent the higher ranking officers. You must obey a senate officers command/order, especially in a courtroom or via a legal document. If a government official is corrupt, or if a party has broken these laws, or if the people simply call for it in mass, the senate will visit the island, and we forcefully change the government to what we believe are the best interests of the people and the island. Hierarchy As a political officer, you can only grant titles and promotions to people, such as legionis based on their political / governmental / war / trading / communication / etc skills. You are not permitted to grant titles or promotions to people based on friendship, family, connections, etc. That is corruption. The Executive Magistrate is only allowed to promote a maximum of 2 legionis, and there must only be a maximum of 4 Praefecti at one time. You must remain aware that no matter your rank, you are subordinate to the senate. An officer of the senate always demands your utmost respect. Concluding statement Breaking of any of these laws is treason, and you are no longer an Elpidan citizen, for life. This means you cannot own property, you cannot vote, you cannot run for office, and you generally cannot partake in our island activities. On top of that, the senate will investigate and come to an additional punishment, which could even be public execution depending on the seriousness of the crime (examples of crimes worth public executions would be rebelling against the senate, corruption, metagaming, etc). Other punishments include spending time in jail, and excessive fines. (As well as this, there are several ooc punishments which can and will occur if necessary). Run for office because you have an active interest in our server, Elpida’s lore, history, politics, land, people, etc. Not because you like to have power over people. Be active on the server and on discord, engage with the people and the lore, be respectful to staff and others, understand and follow our server rules, and you will be fine. Staff consider and punish players who do otherwise very seriously. At today’s debate, roleplay rules were very clearly broken in a number of cases. We hope that this will not happen again. Speaking over people, planting people to ask convenient questions, deliberately swapping parties in order to shadily and sneakily gain politically, creating corrupt parties, acting inappropriately, and behaving badly will not be tolerated. Metagaming is also held at the utmost seriousness, as it is one of our major server rules, along with powergaming, staff do not view it lightly. When staff ask for players to be quiet you should respect that. In the future you will all be respectful, otherwise people will be muted, kicked, or banned. On a more positive note, we look forward to the future debates and hope that all goes better. Looking forward, 2 future debates have been agreed upon and will be held soon, wait for further announcements from the Senate. We hope that you come to them. Gods bless Elpida- Signed, the senate
Can you please clarify rule 12 under the Disruption field of the Debate Act? What constitute's a 'convenient question'? How will you if this rule is broken or if it was just a coincidence?
A convenient question is a question that the two people have planned beforehand and are asked to show that the candidate has great question-answering skills. The vast majority of planned questions can easily be identified, but like you said, there can be coincidences.
It seems there's going to be a certain amount of guessing when it comes down to this rule. If you say it can be easily identified, I won't argue with the senate. However, with the consequence being so harsh - stripping full citizenship rights - it seems like this rule needs further thought before it can be enforced properly.
Not at all. There is not going to be any guessing. We don't remove citizenship based on guesses. For example for the specific rule you mentioned, we determine it by many different methods, one of them being cross-referencing with how a candidate replies to other questions. If we see that the candidate answers questions from one individual consistently at a high level of diplomacy and answers other people's questions at a beginner level (for example), it raises suspicion. Long story short, we won't remove citizenship based on one "convenient" question.
